Best Tableside Restaurant Preparations In Seattle

Ever since steakhouses rolled various cuts of prime beef from their kitchens to the tables of diners and carved them tableside — service has never been the same. The classic steakhouses still know how to put on a show tableside, but you don’t need to wait until the dinner hour for a show-stopping experience. If you have never experienced tableside service at breakfast or lunch, you’ve been missing out. Here are a few places in the area that shine when it comes to tableside service whether it’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Of course, no list would be complete without a couple of classic steakhouses.

If you’ve ever wanted to enjoy breakfast with a 268-foot waterfall roaring right outside your window, this is the place to do it. This is where you come to order up the country breakfast – which has changed little since Salish started serving it back in 1988. A four-course affair that includes fresh biscuits, buttermilk pancakes, old-fashioned steel-cut oats and three eggs with sausage, ham and potatoes, this breakfast is not for the faint of heart. Echoing the falls outside, this breakfast comes with the lodge’s famed tableside ‘Honey from Heaven’ service where honey cascades down from a pitcher that is held high above the homemade biscuits gracing your plate. And the good news is that Salish Lodge is rolling back the price on its famous country breakfast to $19.88 every Monday in August to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

Go to almost any Thai restaurant and you’re going to find pad Thai prominently listed on the menu. It’s understandable given that pad Thai is the standard “go-to” dish for many diners looking to get a taste of Thailand. But when you order pad Thai at May, you’re in for a whole new level of tastes and textures that other restaurants can’t match. At May, the pad Thai is served tableside where rice noodles, tamarind sauce (in place of the standard ketchup) and fresh bean sprouts are all mixed in with a traditional banana blossom and spices that set this dish apart from the hundreds of other pad Thai offerings across the city. You might be tempted to try this at home, but you would be wise to leave it to the pros at May.

Talk about tableside service. Sit at the sushi counter at Shiro’s and put yourself in the hands of master chef Shiro Kashiba and you’ll discover some of the best sushi this city has to offer. You can order off the menu at Shiro’s and walk away a very happy diner. But, order the omakase and let chef Shiro be your guide (he’ll choose eight to 12 pieces of sushi and sashimi along with a roll or appetizers) for the night and you may find yourself not wanting to walk away at all. When you order Shiro’s omakase dinner, you are tapping into his years of sushi experience – from his time in the Tokyo fish markets to his training with the grand sushi masters of Tokyo. Enjoy!

What’s more romantic than having the best steak in town arrive at your table for two? That would be having those custom dry-aged steaks carved up for you and your companion tableside. “The Met” has been known for its attention to quality and service throughout the years. You only need to walk past the maître d’ all done up in a tux to start the anticipation of what’s in store for you. Whether it’s the classic châteaubriand for two, the double New York strip for two or the rack of lamb for two that’s being carved up tableside, you and and your very lucky dining mate will be in good hands as the night unfolds.

This is another classic steakhouse that calls the Pacific Northwest home. It’s fair to say that John Howie Steak is a much-deserved favorite when it comes to getting the best cuts of steak when dining on the Eastside. But when it comes to tableside service, it is the best known for its starters and salads leading up to the main event. You can’t go wrong by starting off with the tableside ahi tartare flavored with Anjou pear, ancho chili powder and other herbs and spices. Or you might prefer to start your meal off with the tableside wilted spinach salad or the traditional tableside Caesar salad. Just make sure you leave plenty of room for the hearty USDA prime steaks that are grilled up over mesquite coals.

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Jenise Silva is a freelance writer in Seattle who has studied culinary, visual and performing arts. She penned the financial planning guide Women & Money, and has been writing about food and the arts for a number of years. Her work can be found at Examiner.com.